Little Rock voters will elect representatives to a downsized school board in March 2026, with seven members instead of the current nine.
All seven will represent geographic zones of the district, the board of the Little Rock School District unanimously decided Thursday. There will be no at-large members who would represent the entire district.
Because the LRSD’s enrollment has dropped below the 20,000-student threshold set by state law, it no longer qualifies to have a nine-member board and must downsize to either five or seven members. A new state law passed this spring, Act 503 of 2025, requires the district to hold elections for the restructured board in March.
School board members’ term lengths are also changing under the new law. They are now required to be either four or six years, instead of the previous range of three to five years, and terms must be staggered to spread out the number of seats up for grabs at each election.
The LRSD board earlier voted to move forward with a seven-member board serving four-year terms in accordance with Act 503, but it was unclear until Thursday’s meeting whether they might include at-large positions. The board next must adopt a new zoning map and submit it to the Pulaski County Clerk by the end of July.
The candidate filing period for board elections will run from Nov. 3 to Nov. 12, and the election will be held March 3, 2026. Early voting begins Feb. 17. At their first meeting, new board members will draw lots to determine which seats serve two-year, four-year, or six-year terms.
Source
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
